Since I've come home from university in the Big City (Aberdeen, 250,000 inhabitants) to the village where I did puberty (Broughton, 200 inhabitants) I've been spending a lot of time in the one pub in the village*, the Laurelbank Tearoom. Looking back through my notebook the other night, I found the following:
"The Laurelbank Tearoom is a really weird mix of customers: farmers in anoraks, handymen in coveralls, businessmen in pinstripe. Like old friends: arm in arm. Broughton is a terrible place to be, but it fosters an unorthodox warmth for those for whom all that is important is warmth. Anyone will do."
I must have been catastrophically drunk at the time because I have absolutely no recollection of writing it, but I think it's a nice sentiment that anyone who has lived in very small villages can relate to.
*Broughton is home to the Broughton Ales brewery, which makes exceedingly good (and strong) beer. For a long time the village had no pub. Imagine that: having an award winning brewery and no where to drink the hops of their labour. Altogether now: life's shite, then you die.
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